Tagged: anne rice

The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice

The Mummy by Anne Rice(Cover picture courtesy of The Towering Pile.)

Ramses the Great lives…

Reawakened in opulent Edwardian London, he becomes Dr. Ramsey, expert in Egyptology and member of a group of jaded aristocrats with strange appetites to appease.  But searing memories of his last reawakening, at the behest of Cleopatra, burn in his immortal soul.  For he has drunk the elixir of life and is now Ramses the Damned, doomed forever to wander the earth, desperate to quell hungers that can never be satisfied.  And his most intense longing of all, a great love undiminished by the centuries, will force him to commit an act of unspeakable horror….

I’ve read a lot of Anne Rice’s books, but The Mummy is my absolute favourite, no question about it.  It has the perfect mix of tragedy, romance, history and emotion that Anne Rice pulls off so well, without any extra flab added to the story.  Compared to her other novels, The Mummy is incredibly short, with my version only being 398 pages.  Believe me, they read fast!

Maybe I’m a bit biased because I’ve always loved ancient Egypt and have been fascinated by Ramses the Great.  I’m not necessarily an admirer of him, but he does play a significant role in history and did have an interesting life.  Well, Anne Rice brings him to life in The Mummy and he is as charming, well-spoken and lecherous as one would expect.  But he also has a soft side, which is what makes it so easy for Julie and readers to fall in love with him.  Julie herself has a few too many modern sensibilities for the era, but she is an interesting character because she is so strong.  She’s the perfect match for Ramses.

Anne Rice showcases exactly what it is that makes people want to devote their entire lives to the study of Egyptology.  If you haven’t fallen in love with Egypt by the time you finish The Mummy, you likely never will.  I didn’t even catch any glaring historical inaccuracies.  Sure, some things were changed around if you believe in the traditional Cleopatra story, but Anne Rice presents a compelling alternative that makes sense in the context of the story.  Her vivid descriptions reveal the passion she has for ancient Egypt and that enthusiasm continues throughout the entire novel.

Her later Vampire Chronicles works seemed to lack heart, but The Mummy certainly does not.  It’s fresh, a fitting retelling of the very old, generally cliché shambling mummy coming back from the grave story.  Of course it has fantastical elements, but I don’t think they’ll be overwhelming for people who don’t normally read fantasy.  Anne Rice achieved perfect balance in The Mummy and it’s a book I would highly recommend to anyone.

Warning: This is an Anne Rice book.  Of course there are explicit sex scenes and gore that could be offensive to young or sensitive readers.  I would personally not recommend The Mummy for anyone under 14, but everyone matures at different rates.  Use your common sense when buying books.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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Blood and Gold by Anne Rice

(Cover picture courtesy of Rankopedia.)

Once a proud Senator in Imperial Rome, Marius is kidnapped and forced into the dark realm of blood, where he is made a protector for the Queen and King of the vampires—in whom the core of the supernatural race resides.  Through his eyes we see the fall of pagan Rome to the Emperor Constantine, the horrific sack of the Eternal City at the hands of the Visigoths, and the vile aftermath of the Black Death.  Ultimately restored by the beauty of the Renaissance, Marius becomes a painter, living dangerously yet happily among mortals, and giving his heart to the great master Botticelli, to the bewitching courtesan Bianca, and to the mysterious young apprentice Armand.  But it is in the present day, deep in the jungle, when Marius will meet his fate seeking justice from the oldest vampires in the world.

If not for PandoraBlood and Gold would be my favourite novel by Anne Rice.  The story of Marius, a logical Roman man, kidnapped and turned into a vampire against his will.  But what stands out for me is the amazing amount of detail Anne Rice puts into her historical fiction.  The splendor of ancient Rome, the horror of the Black Death, the energy and creativity surrounding the Italian Renaissance…all of the settings come alive and you feel like you’re really there along with Marius.

Marius himself is a very complex character.  His traditional Roman upbringing and his naturally logical personality clash very well with Pandora’s free spirit and dreamy personality and it makes for a very interesting relationship.  However, since Pandora mostly focused on their relationship, Anne Rice doesn’t spend nearly as much time on it.  Instead, she focuses on the relationship between Marius and Armand, his student and the courtesan Bianca in Renaissance Italy.  Blood and Gold certainly fills in a lot of the questions I had from reading The Vampire Armand.  If nothing else, it paints Marius in a more sympathetic light!

Blood and Gold isn’t for everyone.  If you get annoyed by long, detailed descriptions of historical events and daily life, you won’t enjoy Blood and Gold.  But for someone like me, who loves it when a writer showcases their knowledge of the era, Blood and Gold is perfect.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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Pandora by Anne Rice

(Cover picture courtesy of Books are a Garden.)

Anne Rice, creator of the Vampire Lestat, the Mayfair witches and the amazing worlds they inhabit, now gives us the first in a new series of novels linked together by the fledgling vampire David Talbot, who has set out to become a chronicler of his fellow Undead.

The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life.

Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.

[Summary courtesy of Goodreads.]

Pandora is part of Anne Rice’s New Tales of the Vampires (although they’re not that new anymore) and there is virtually no difference in writing quality or style from her more popular The Vampire Chronicles.  What is different, though, is that we finally see the stories of formerly minor characters who aren’t really connected to Lestat.  Lestat, although he is a very interesting character, does get annoying after a couple of books, so a book from the point of view of Pandora was perfect for me.

Pandora is a woman during Pax Romana, or the golden age of Rome during the later years of Augustus.  Anne Rice paints a picture of a strong-willed woman very much in control of her own life and doted on by a loving father who is far from the average pater familias.  She is a free spirit, a dreamer and when she falls in love with Marius, the logical, cold Roman man, it makes for an interesting relationship.  The dynamics are definitely not that of a traditional one!

As with all of her novels, Anne Rice has done the research and paints a believable picture of ancient Rome in its glory and during its fall.  From the reign of terror of Sejanus to the murderous paranoia and sadism of Tiberius all the way to the spread and eventual acceptance of Christianity, Anne Rice takes readers on an amazing introspective adventure.  Pandora is actually my favourite book about Anne Rice’s vampires not just because I love Roman history, but because Pandora herself is one amazing three dimensional character.

I give this book 4.5/5 stars.

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*Unfortunately, Amazon only has Pandora available in a double book with Vittorio the Vampire unless you want to purchase a used novel.

Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice

(Cover picture courtesy of Midshelf.com.)

In Anne Rice’s extraordinary new novel, the vampire Lestat—outsider, canny monster, hero-wanderer—is snatched from the world itself by the most dangerous adversary he has ever known: Memnoch, a mysterious being who claims to be the Devil.  He is invited to be a witness at the Creation.  He is taken like the ancient prophets into the heavenly realm and is ushered into Purgatory.  Lestat must decide if he can believe in the Devil or in God.  And finally, he must decide which, if either, he will serve…

I really didn’t see why so many people were upset about this novel until I actually read it a few times.  Now, however, I can see why it has been deemed offensive—or even blasphemous—and why Anne Rice, now a born-again Christian has repudiated her Vampire Chronicles.  Especially since this one.  Memnoch the Devil doesn’t tell the conventional church-approved story of Satan’s fall from heaven.  No, it is Satan, or Memnoch, who tells his side of the story.

From a theological perspective, this is a very interesting book.  In it, Anne Rice has combined both old and new Christian ideas from many denominations with a bit of Jewish theology.  Memnoch’s justification for his rebellion reminds me very much of the character of Satan from John Milton’s Paradise Lost.  Without getting into all of the nasty little details, let’s just call this novel experimental theology and leave it at that, shall we?  I’m not going to bring my personal beliefs into this review.

From a less biased, more literature-focused perspective, Memnoch the Devil is not exactly the greatest novel ever written.  Lestat is a cardboard cutout by now, the plot is slow and predictable and Memnoch is the only redeeming thing, character-wise.  Memnoch is complicated, yet sympathetic in a bizarre way if you put your religious beliefs aside while reading this.  But other than Memnoch, this novel doesn’t have much going for it.

As usual, my warning: Memnoch the Devil contains mature content including bad language, explicit sex scenes and violence.  Personally, I would not recommend it for anyone under the age of 14, but it really depends on the reader’s maturity level.

I give this book 2/5 stars.

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The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice

(Cover picture courtesy of Collider.com)

In a new feat of hypnotic storytelling, Anne Rice elaborates on the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles that began with the now-class Interview with the Vampire and continued with The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned.

For centuries, Lestat—vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals—has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of the undead.  Now Lestat is alone.  And suddenly all of his vampire rationale—everything he has come to believe and feel safe with—is called into question.  In his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the danger-haunted years of his long existence…

The Tale of the Body Thief is the fourth book in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, but by this book, it seems like her heart wasn’t really in to writing it.  While the premise of the novel is interesting enough and her descriptions are just as wonderful, it seems to lack the spirit and enthusiasm of the first three books.  It seems as if she was pressured into writing a fourth book to capitalize on her series’ fame and that’s the worst reason for any author to write a book.

Even though it feels like Anne Rice had to continue the series because of its immense popularity, Lestat is still as complex as ever and after being a vampire for so long, he struggles as a human.  It’s amazing to see him struggle over things that normal humans do every day, like eating and going to the bathroom.  Along the way he meets David Talbot, a former member of the supernatural secret society, the Talamasca.  Together they discover that the man Lestat switched bodies with has no intention of switching back and they hatch a plot to get Lestat back in his proper body.

I’ll add my usual warning: this is not a fast-paced novel.  Yes, it has an interesting plot, but no, it is not a fast plot because The Tale of the Body Thief is a character-driven novel.  Anne Rice has wonderfully sensual descriptions and a compelling writing style, but as with all of the books in the Vampire Chronicles, The Tale of the Body Thief contains explicit sex scenes and other mature content.  I would recommend it for ages 14 and up.

I give this book 3/5 stars.

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